At the end of the game, the King and the Pawn goes into the same box

Seerah Episode 10: Life of the Prophet – Birth of the Messenger Part 2 May 30, 2014

There are riwayats of miraculous things that happened during the birth of the prophet. Those are contested by the ulamaks because the issue of the authenticity of the narrations. Nonetheless we are giving it here because some of the scholars do include it in their series of seerah.

— Miracles that occurred during the birth of the Prophet

During the night of the birth, it was said that the whole Palace of Qisra (of the Persian Empire) literally shook. 14 balconies of the Palace of Qisra broke & fell off. People of Persia were Zoroastrian. They worshipped a sacred fire that had been burning continuously for a thousand year, and it never gone out. But that fire was extinguished that night without any explanation. Water levels from the River of Tigris became extremely low so that the irrigation didn’t reach the farms. All across the region, there was a bright light shining in the night sky.

There’s a man named Mubidaan, a waazir (minister), who is an influential person on the court of Persian Empire had a dream. In his dream, a large older camel was outrunning a fast young horse. Mubidaan also sees in his dream that the Tigris River stopped flowing altogether. Because of that, Mubidaan was worried.

— The Persian Emperor gathered all of his counsels. “Do you know why I gathered you altogether? It’s because the central fire that we worship was extinguished last night. The balconies of my palace broke & fell.” Mubidaan steps up to recount his dream.

Emperor of Persia asks Mubidaan (one of his roles was to interpret dreams) what his dream meant. Mubidaan said: “Something interesting is happening in the direction of Arabs.”

— Emperor sends a man to direction of Arabia to see what’s going on. That person finds someone on the way (reported name: Abdul Masih of tribe of Al Ghasan, bordered the Arabs in As-Sham)

Abdul Masih tells the Persian emperor’s messenger that for the last few days/weeks, almost every leader of every tribe in Syria came to him asking the very same question, “What’s going on in Al-Hejaz?” Some people are hearing things, some are dreaming.
In another narration, Abdul Masih calls on Satih, who was knowledgeable on Tawrut & Injeel & knows a lot about Prophets of the Past. Satih tells Abdul Masih that the Prophet of the Last Times is born. Satih goes on to say that according to the prophecies, the reign of the Qisra will see 14 more emperors before it comes to an end. Abdul Masih follows the Persian messenger back to Persian Empire to tell the emperor about the 14 kingdoms: “In 4 years, we will go through 10 emperors.”

That’s exactly what happened. The last emperor of the Qisra dynasty was Yazjajdird, who fought the Muslim armies later on. His palace was completely destroyed. The dynasty of Qisra ruled for 3,164 years. It ended during the Khilafa of Uthman (ra).
The very first emperor of Persia from the Qisra dynasty was Khaiyummart, bin Umain bin Lawad bin Saam bin Nuh (as). It’s amazing, the first emperor of Persia was the great-great grandson of Nuh (as)!

— Some monks & rabbis talked about the coming of the “Prophet of the Last Times”

2 or 3 generations before the birth of the Prophet, some leaders from as-Sham came to Makkah to interview different leaders of Quryash, trying to figure out from whose family the Prophet will come from. Two Quryash leaders that were interviewed were Abd-Shams & Abd-Munaf, who are from the children of Qusay. Abd-Munaf is one of the great-great grandfathers of Prophet.
One of the priests from as-Sham tells Abd-Munaf, “Allah has given me the understanding of certain things, so listen to me carefully. Oh Arabs, you are in time period of a break, where you’re on pause. Nothing important is happening right now, but it will happen. Right now you have no knowledge. You’re ignorant, desert-dwelling, camel-riding simple people. We outsiders don’t look at you with respect. However, people of great understanding are going to come from your generations. They will go out & seek great types of knowledge. The idols that you worship – your progeny will come & break the idols with their hands. They will fight the great empires that exist today (the Persian and Roman empires). They will defeat them & inherit their wealth.”

The priest also recites some poetry: “Understand that there is a life here after that remains for eternity. That is where you should hope for. The person who lives here, from this place, will leave his home (talking about Hijrah). He will be a Prophet that will be guided by God. He will guide people to that which is true. He will reject the idols that you worship. He will have nothing to do with the worship of idols. He will worship one Lord, one God. Then Allah will give him death in the best of places (Madina). Right now, the virtue of that place is lost on people. This is being witnessed by the sky. Our books tell us that this man will have the quality of trustworthiness.

“He will inherit the rule from this prophet (Abu Bakr). When he will make a decision, he will speak the truth. He will return the rights to the people. He will not do anything that is unintelligent, nor will he be a pushover.

“After him, a man will inherit the rule who will be very focused (Umar bin al-Khattab). He will be a man of great experience & great honor. He will be a man of great hospitality.”

The priest also talked about Uthman (ra) & his qualities, & the fact that he will be assassinated. He also spoke of the other kings that will come from the Umayyad dynasty & the fitnas that will come upon the ummah.

— Shuaib narrates from his father, who narrates from his father (all three generations are Sahaba). The grandfather was passing by a place named Dhahran. He met a rahib, a Christian monk named Ayisa, from the people of Syria. Ayisa was very well known for his teachings & knowledge of the teachings and lives of the past Prophets. He was also well known in Makkah for his humility and generosity.

Ayisa had confined himself to a church most of the time for worship. But once a year, he’d leave the monastery to go to Makkah to buy the supplies & visits the people in Makkah. Whenever he visited Makkah, he’d say same thing to leaders there:
“People of Makkah, listen. You’re very close to a child being born amongst you. The Arabs will follow his deen. He will rule over the non-Arabs. This is his time and his era. Whoever finds him follows him and believes in him, will find himself in a strong position. Whoever finds him, gets to interact with him, but confronts/argues with him, will be in the wrong. I didn’t leave the land of peace & tranquility & comfort & luxury (As Sham, was a very prosperous place, which was ruled by a kings of Gassam) and come to the land of hunger, starvation, civil unrest, and economic uncertainty except to find that Prophet. I read about him & studied about him & know he’s going to be here. That’s why I keep coming back to Makkah.”

Whenever every single time a child is born in Makkah, Ayisa would go there to find out more if that’s the Prophet. He’d ask for the infant’s description. He wouldn’t disclose what he was looking for. One time, he shares the markers of what he’s looking for in the Prophet because he was getting older & wasn’t sure that he’d live to witness the birth of the Prophet, so he wanted to pass on that knowledge.

A Makkan man who was given the markers (what he was looking for) by Ayisa goes to Ayisa’s monastery to tell him of a child that was born recently. Ayisa already told the man that the child will be born on Monday, given prophethood on Monday, and die on Monday.

Ayisa asks what his name is. His name is Muhammad. Ayisa asks what family he was born into. He was born into family of Banu Hashim; Ayisa told the man that he himself wished that the Prophet would be born to Hashim. Because it is a good family. Ayisa said 3 things are coming together:

“I saw the star in the sky – the same star that shines every time a prophet is born.”

“He was born in a Monday.”

“His name is Muhammad.”

Ayisa asks to be taken to the child. Once Ayisa reaches there, he says another sign that this is the Prophet is that the child will suffer for 3 days. He will have discomfort in drinking milk for 3 days. An evil jinni knew that this was the Messenger, so he would stuck his finger in the mouth of the prophet so that he would have trouble nursing. In a narration, an angel came and protected Prophet.

— Another sign – simple fact that many monks & rabbis showed up to Makkah. They are very knowledgeable people. They saw the same star that shined in the sky when Musa was born. And other prophets born.

Some Jewish rabbis came to some Arab leaders of the tribes of Aus & Khazraj in Yathrib and said, “qad-dzahabat. Qad-dzahabat. It has left. It has left. Nubuwwah (prophethood) has left Banu Israel. We saw a light emanating from Makkah. We saw a star shining in the direction of Makkah. It tells us that the Prophet of the Last time has come amongst the Arabs. It supposed to come from us but it has left us. Prophethood has left our lineage. Qad-dzahabat.”

Some rabbis said that this child carries several signs of Prophethood:

Muhammad is yateem, an orphan. His father is dead.

On his back, between his shoulder blades, there’s a birthmark that’s like a cluster of moles. There’s hairs on the mole. This is the seal of Prophethood.

One of these Jewish rabbis goes to Makkah asking about this child born that was on this night. He goes around asking which family recently gave birth. He goes to the home of Aminah. “Did you give birth recently?”
He sees that Muhammad has the nur of nubuwwah. He also sees the birthmark on the infant, & confirms that this child indeed will be a Prophet. The rabbi says that he hopes to live to see the day Muhammad receives Prophethood so he can come and believe in his message.

Many of the monks & rabbis predicted according to the text that the child will be called Ahmed. Before this, we already learnt that there’s a narration that tells that Aminah preferred to call her son Ahmed.

The rabbi said: “No one in history will be envied as much as the child will be. No one in history will be as attacked as he will be. This child will not live to see the age of 70. He will die at the age of 60 some odd years. This will be the average age of his ummah.”